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Here is a nice jade bi I bought recently.

The style of this carving is spring and autumn period, but the middle rope decoration seperating the phoenixes from the dragons, suggest a warring states period carving.

The brown surface is probably mercury staining, although it could also come from burial with silver or wood.

in some areas the color of the jade can still be seen, and it appear to be white jade with darker green patches and red streaks.

This color combination is rare - especially in archaic jade.

The center hole appear to be drilled from both sides, leaving a rim inside, a bit off the middle.

It measures 12cm x 6mm.

Now my concern is if this could be a copy from later dynasties, for example Song or Ming, where a huge number of archaic style jades were made.

I don't think it's modern. The only supsicious thing about it, is the high gloss of the brown layer, that also have a sticky feel to it, but this could come from a recent oiling of the piece, I guess.

Any thoughts?

The outer rim is not even.The center opening is rough. I also do not like the color.
Ernest

Modern tool marks pretty obvious.

Again, dubious material significantly reduces the probability of it being genuine.

Note that none of your pieces are of good quality Chinese nephrite.

Please stop calling your jade carvings including this "jade" bi archaic or archaistic.

Do you have any ideas of the functions of an archaic jade bi?

The main functions of a jade bi are:

(1) used as an instrument for worship (making sacrifice), like worshiping the heaven, gods, mountains, oceans, rivers or stars; (2) Used as a device for rites or ceremonies; (3)used as a symbol for ranks; (4)used as an ornament.

Therefore, the use of jade bi was a very serious business in ancient China and the cost of making a jade bi was both expensive and time consuming. Please take a good look at the "jade" bi you posted here. Do you truly believe it can be used for one of the above functions?

Its material is terrible; its color is repulsive; it has no luster; apparently made of some cheap soft stone. Its carving and design are quite awkward to the point of being ugly. I have no idea what your size 12 cm x 6 cm means. A jade bi that was made in the 30s or 40s will be much better looking than this piece of "junk".
I do not know what your definition of "modern" is, anything that is less than ten years old?
In short, do you truly believe that this "jade" bi could be an archaic jade bi used in worship or rites, as a symbol for rank or as an ornament in ancient China?

I respectfully suggest you to please buy some jade books that were written by renown jade experts and do some diligent researches on jade bi or for that matter on archaic jade carvings before you would continue to post all these CHEAP jade carvings you bought for a few dollars from eBay. I own quite a few of these types of jade items, bought when I first started collecting jades, many of them are much better than yours and some were even made of real nephrite jade, now were used only as my study pieces or door stops. Do you understand how difficult it is to obtain an authentic archaic jade piece? What is your definition for "archaic" any way? Do you, like my Chinese friend, truly believe you can just go to eBay and find a piece of archaic jade for a few dollars when one of the renown jade expert whom I respect, who was invited by Sotheby to study Emperor Qianlong's personal collection of archer jade rings, told me that he only owned three pieces of archaic jades and only one piece he was real sure it was archaic.

I know you probably enjoy jades but like collecting anything, you must first buy the books, study what you collect before you can truly appreciate or value what you have. No pun intended.

@Dave: Could you eventually point out in what areas you can see those toolmark you mean are modern?

To the right side on the second picture, inside the phioenix, there is some corrosion, that looks like scramble in the photo, but this comes from mineral loss, I think.

I have to admit that the study of toolmarks is an area I have largely neglected in my research.

When I started collecting I learned that the general consensus was that toolmarks couldn't be used to neither validate the authenticity of a jade carving, or to exclude it from being old, exept for the very obvious ones, like those made from lasercut.

Some years ago there was a case with gallerie Zacke in Austria, who used close up photographs of marks on the archaic jades they offered, in a way to authentify them, and this caused quite some criticism in the jade collecting community, I remember.

I know it's a subject that has been debated alot on various internet fora, but so was the 'raised crystals' back then.

Now on the subject of material.

I suspect this bi to be made from xiuyan jade.
I only learned about this material a few months ago, so I'm still not familiar with it, but apparently this field produce both nephrite and serpentine, and also material that are a mix of those two.

Even though the red streaks could be cinnbar, it looks like it's natural, and if so, it points to the White nephrite version of xiuyan jade which sometimes have this feature.

Also in the area of the green patches, the material appears more translucent, and makes me think if the green patches are actually serpentine stocked in a white nephrite based matrix.

This is pure speculation anyway and the carving would probaly have to be cleaned off its Mercury permetation

But if the material really is xiuyan nephrite jade, then it's actually consistant with material used in the Zhou dynasty.

I would like to point that out.

Below are two photos of jade carvings made in a material comparable to the material of the Bi shown.

First is a bracelet I purchased recently, stated to be xiuyan jade by the chinese seller. I bought this mainly to have an example of this material to study.

The second is a warring states riual vessl made in a similiar material.

The ritual vessel is also an example of how impressive an item made in this type of jade can be, with the strong contrast of red and white.

How anyone can find such material terrible or its colors repulsive, I don't really understand, but perhaps it's a matter of taste.

And with a third contrast of green as in my piece, I personally find the effect even more stunning.

Just this morning when I was looking at it under a lamp, I discovered golden inclusíons inside the jade that glitters and sparkles when the piece is turned around in the light.

An effect very similair to that of 'snowflake jade', expect in the latter the inclusions are white.

So even though the jade is not high grade pebble material, I don't think you can call it lowgrade either. Not in my opinion.

Personally I have doubts about every jade in this thread...And thats without relying on the old "Machine marks arguement"

Corey:

Please find me an authentic archaic jade carving that was made of material that is similar to that of your two pieces and I will apologize to you for insulting your jade pieces. I sincerely hope you did not pay the price listed at the bottom of the picture of your "Warring States" "jade" vessel: HKD 30,000 which is about US$ 3,846.

Where did you find this Chinese seller? eBay?

To call this material Xi Yan jade will be an insult to xi yu. I do not really believe they are jade. They look more like some kinds of marble to me. Now there is almost similar looking material that is supposedly originated from Liaoning that was used to made fake Liangzhu jade carvings (they talked about this type of material in the Friends of Jade web site). This material cannot be scratched. They are more red and white than your brown and white material though. Did you do a scratch test on your pieces? I doubt very much they are real jade because of the size of your vessel.

Hey, that is absolutely nothing wrong to enjoy the material of your jade pieces and paid as much as you want for any of them. After all, it is your money.

A while ago, an oil man from Texas wanted to build the biggest and best collection of Hongshan jades in the world and money was not a problem to him. He traveled to every corner of the world and kept buying "genuine" Hongshan jade carvings, spending close to a million US dollars. He was very proud of his accomplishment - in building the largest and best Hongshan jade collection in the world in a short period of time.
Well, when the collection was later appraised by genuine Hongshan jade experts, they were all fakes.

The problems with trying to build a great jade collection beside having money to spend is it takes a lot of time, a lot patience and a lot of study to acquire great jades. Some time it takes luck and opportunities. There are so many fakes and dishonest jade dealers out there.

Please go to this link where I had listed the five virtues of jade:

Using the five virtues to appraise you two jade pieces,

(1) Benevolence - do you see any luster, brilliance and warmth on the surface of your two jade pieces?
They are both DULL looking.
(2) Integrity - is the jade material translucent?
No, they are not.
(3) Wisdom - using a metal spoon or rod to gently hit the surface of your jades, can you hear beautiful sounds like that coming from a brass bell?
(4) Courage - can you scratch the material? What is their MOH hardness?
It really does not matter what material they used to "carve" jade, whether lapis, serpentine, nephrite, the good material could not be scratched. There are high grade lapis and there are low grade one. High grade material costs a bundle. I once spent $50 to buy a small lapis rock. Try to find a piece of genuine BLACK nephrite jade, it is hard to find.

(5) Purity - is the material pure without any impurity in it?
No, the material of your two pieces were all mixed up with different material that exhibit different color.

In short, after you test your two pieces with these five tests, do you still feel that they are beautiful because they have one or more of the jade virtues?

If you believe so, then you should surely continue to enjoy them. My Chinese friend has seven cabinets of beautiful "archaic/Neolithic" jade carvings made of better material than yours all over his house. He is a very happy jade collector and truly enjoys his jade collection, inviting friends come to his house every week to admire his jade collection with him. He collaborated with one of his friends who took high definition pictures of all his "archaic" jade carvings, put in his jade book (mostly his jade collection) as an electronic jade book for sales in Amazon.com I dare not say anything.

Cheers.

Super

Not sure who is kidding who Corey. How is this material comparable to the bi above? Seriously?

Your bracelet, xiuyan or whatever, I find it very controversial to collect such plain items attempting to argue that it is probably archaic or archaistic. It is like grabbing a pebble by the coast and argue that it was probably formed millions of years ago. I tend to avoid this area in particular.

As for the vessel or ding, in terms of aesthetics it has already failed to be frank. The red and white seems to be the result of acid corrosion more than the natural colours of whatever low grade material.

Perhaps you should check out JadeBase forum where you may find like-minded collectors. =)

@ Dave

It was the red streaks on a white base that I found comparable with the material of the bracelet and the Ding, but because of the mercury permutation that covers the surface of the bi, it is difficult to inspect the colors.

The bracelet was NOT stated to be old by the seller, and when I asked about his opinion, he replied that he didn't belive they were old.

The warring states vessel is not mine. It was sold for HKD 30.000.000 at a chinese auction.
Very sad for the buyer who paid that much for a fake, as we learn it is from you, Dave.

Super, I will have to wait with a reply to your two posts, as I am very busy these days.

Congratulations, Dave, you will soon be celebrating two years of jade collecting (see quote below), and you can now stand as an authority on the subject. Wonderful progress since posting pictures of some dubious jade and naive questions just one year ago. Any plans for a book soon?


(Dave)October 29, 2012
"I've been studying Chinese Archaic Jade for almost a year now and always on the lookout for questionable pieces to both share and learn some knowledge".

Super, to answer your post of Oct. 10:

Yes, I certainly know of the functions of an arcahic jade bi. They were made in very large numbers and different styles, and with the motive of phoenixes and dragons, both myhological creatures of heaven I truly belive my bi could be used for the first function you mention.

Also the mercury permutation shows that it has been part of a burial ritual.

I don't know if the color you find repulsive is the brown color, but if so; this is not the color of the jade itself.

The design of the bi is basicly correct. Phoenixes of a similair style are found on bronze objects from the same period.

The middle rope decoration is often seen on jade bi's mainly from the han dynasty or the warring states period.

12 cm x 6mm refers means 12 centimeter wide x 6 millimeter thick. (1 inch = 2,5 cm - 1cm = 10mm)

Yes, the bi is quite unevenly carved and it lacks a high grade polish like the fine ones have. Archaic bi discs were made in huge numbers, and the quality of carving VARIES a lot, from being extremely fine to pieces that looks like the were never finished.

I know how difficult it is to find genuine archaic jade since it has been my main focus in collecting for ten years, but you also have to understand a large amount of their value lies in their provenance. They are far more affordable without provenance.

I have several books on chinese art, and with ebay I have seen many good pieces sold there during the last tree years. It is like if things have changed after the financial crisis hit. Before that there were almost no good jades to be found on ebay. Eventhough the best pieces there are far from being cheap, you can be lucky.

Below are to pictures taken from the wikipedia article on the subject. As you can see they both lacks in quality of the carving and in quality of the material.

@ Super, as a reply on your post of Oct. 16.

About finding a genuine archaic jade in a similair material as the jade bracelet, I remember there was one at Phoebus actions in Taiwan, but I will have to search through their online catelouges for hours to find it again.

So you will probably have to do with the warring states ritual vessel I posted earlier, that was sold for HKD 30.000.000 - not 30.000!

The picture is from a book on auction record prices for jade in 2013, and to my knowledge it is the highest price ever paid for any archaic jade.

About the material being xiuyan jade, the only reference I have for this, is from the descripton of the bracelet from the chinese seller. I could be wrong about this.

I'm pretty sure the material of the bracelet is jade . It passes a hardness test. It has the sound of jade. And it has typical russet inclusions (the brown stripes). It's rather opaque, but this is common for nephrite. It's definately not marble.

The best would be to make a density test, but I need to buy better tools to make this.

The style of it is also warring states btw.
Ben Janssens, one of my favorite dealers, have a similair one in his sold stock section at his website, but in different material.

Hope this helps.

/Corey

Anyway, this is the book from where the picture of the warring states vessel is taken.

The auction results are from 2012 while the book is edited in 2013. My mistake - sorry!

hi I been reading a lot about jade carvings I have a friend who came here to nyc over 30 years ago and they been in a vault since then he carried a few pices of these beautiful jade artifacts dating back 5000 years ago they are all real I have the proof I have pictures to show if anyone is interested in seeing these pices please contact me [email protected] I will send you pictures and any info needed

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